Thoughts on Hypocrisy in the US Congress

It may be difficult to take an objective look at the state of affairs in the US Congress, especially in the midst of the chaos surrounding the health care reform bill before them at this time; But, maybe now is the best possible time for us to closely analyze the stances taken, primarily by conservatives, against majority legislative procedures such as reconciliation and deem.

These procedures, though used numerous times to pass bills with narrow majorities, and utilized by both parties when they have been in the majority, are being called unconstitutional by some who claim that these methods have never been used to pass social reform. These elected officials know very well that these procedures have been used numerous times for social change. Most recently, the 2001 and 2003 Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy passed by reconciliation and the raising of the debt ceiling by previous Republican and Democratic Administrations passed through use of the deem procedure.

Often, as a member of the minority party, it is easy to complain about the process when you know you can’t win the argument based on ideas. This has happened to both sides over the course of history, and now the health care bill is in the same boat. The minority didn’t support the bill last March, still, they had many ideas of theirs incorporated into the bill, knowing it will be passed no matter what due to the process. But now they are using misinformation about the bill to win elections in November while claiming opposition to many of their own ideas. This is what tends to happen when a political argument is allowed to fester for too long, people begin to suffer short term memory loss. Cynically opposing ideas you are truly in favor of has to be the worst form of hypocrisy present in our politics today.

If we as citizens can’t see this, and are unwilling to call out those who are purposely cynical, the future of our government is in dire straits. We need leaders who will not only stand by their ideals, but also listen to reasonable ideas from their opponents, finally formulating their opinions and voting decisions based on facts, not on how bad it will make the other side look. The US Congress is causing headaches for all Americans, liberal and conservative. Until we can rid our system of this kind of cynicism, meaningful bi-partisan reform of any kind will not be possible in our legislative branch.